Fani Willis ran one of the most corrupt prosecutor's offices in America – and a sitting federal judge celebrated her for it.
Now Harmeet Dhillon is doing what the federal judiciary was too cowardly to do itself.
And what she found behind that courthouse door would make your stomach turn.
Dhillon Pulls the Trigger on Judge Eleanor Ross
U.S. Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon filed a motion Friday seeking the immediate recusal of Atlanta U.S. District Judge Eleanor Ross from a key election-integrity case.
The reason is damning enough on its own.
Ross – an Obama appointee – admittedly attended a partisan Democrat fundraiser celebrating Fani Willis's primary victory.
Willis is the Fulton County District Attorney who secured a sweeping, politically-motivated indictment against President Trump and nearly 20 others in 2023.
The courts later disqualified Willis after her own affair with special prosecutor Nathan Wade became public.
As Dhillon argued in her motion, a judge who attended a party celebrating the election of a Democrat famous for prosecuting a Republican president cannot then preside over a case about that president's efforts to protect election integrity.
That argument is airtight.
But the fundraiser attendance is only the beginning.
What Was Happening Inside Her Chambers
The Eleventh Circuit's Judicial Council found that Judge Ross conducted a years-long extramarital sexual relationship with Atlanta Police Department Deputy Chief Kelley Collier – inside her own courthouse chambers, during business hours.
Her law clerks could hear it.
The affair ran from 2023 to 2025.
Collier is a nearly 30-year APD veteran who commands the department's Community Services Division – and he is married.
So is Ross.
Her husband is DeKalb County Circuit Judge Brian Ross.
The Eleventh Circuit's own special committee called the relationship a demonstration of "gross lack of judgment" and found it created a "chambers workplace that was extremely uncomfortable and troubling for clerks."
It also created a direct conflict-of-interest risk, since the Atlanta Police Department has numerous active cases before Ross's court.
Only by sheer "happenstance," according to the Judicial Council, did Ross avoid presiding over any cases involving Collier's specific division while the affair was active.
Luck – not ethics – is what prevented a catastrophic conflict.
When the misconduct was first raised, Ross called the allegations "outrageous" and denied everything.
She lied to Chief Judge William Pryor during his investigation.
She retaliated against the law clerk who reported her.
After she was caught, she finally admitted the truth.
The Eleventh Circuit's response?
A private reprimand – never made public, never releasing her name.
The Judiciary Protecting Its Own
The same system that would disbar any lawyer for lying to a judge handed one of its own judges a slap on the wrist and sealed her name from the public.
Ross keeps her lifetime appointment.
She keeps her full pay and benefits.
The only concessions: she agreed to forgo the title of chief judge and write apology letters to the staff she wronged.
Congress has impeached federal judges for far less.
In 2009, Texas District Judge Samuel Kent was impeached for lying to investigators about sexual misconduct in his courthouse – Ross did exactly the same and received a private reprimand.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley has pushed legislation to create an independent inspector general for the federal judiciary precisely because of failures like this.
Federal judges have proven, repeatedly, that they cannot police themselves.
The Pattern the Judiciary Ignored
Eleanor Ross is not an isolated case.
She is the product of a judiciary that treats misconduct as an internal personnel matter rather than a public accountability crisis.
She attended Fani Willis's victory party – a woman herself removed from a major prosecution for an identical workplace affair scandal.
That parallel is not a coincidence.
It is a culture.
Willis refused to step down after her scandal broke and won re-election anyway.
Ross is following the same playbook.
And Georgia's Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff – whose home state judiciary has been humiliated twice in two years – has said nothing.
No call for resignation.
No demand for transparency.
Complete silence.
Dhillon's motion is the only thing standing between Ross and a federal election-integrity case she has no business touching.
The Justice Department should go further: open a criminal investigation into the false statements Ross made to Chief Judge Pryor and hand the full file to the House for impeachment proceedings.
America deserves judges who understand that a federal courthouse is not a room at Motel 6 – and Eleanor Ross just proved she doesn't.
Sources:
- Mike Davis, "Disgraced Georgia judge must leave the bench over sex scandal," Fox News, May 30, 2026.
- Suzanne Monyak, "Eleanor Ross Is US Judge Reprimanded for Sex in Chambers," Bloomberg Law, May 28, 2026.
- Josh Gerstein, "DOJ Moves To Disqualify Judge Ross In Election Interference Case," Reason, May 29, 2026.
- Brianna Herlihy, "Dhillon wants judge who allegedly attended a Fani Willis event off Georgia election integrity case," Just The News, May 29, 2026.
- Haley Chi-Sing, "Married Obama-Appointed Judge Reprimanded For Repeated Courthouse Sex With Cop," The Daily Caller, May 29, 2026.
- Staff, "GA Judge Who Dodged Public Scrutiny for 'Deeply Troubling Misconduct' Is Exposed," RedState, May 28, 2026.
